If there’s anything that this week’s YouTube roundup tells us, it’s that we’re all suckers for cringe-worthy videos. Really – if Rebecca Black (who just racked up over 100 million views on YouTube, by the way) can become one of YouTube’s most viewed artists of all time, then you know some of the most-watched forms of entertainment are things we love to hate.

In this week’s roundup, we have some dramatic – and shocking – new footage from the tsunami that devastated the northeastern coast of Japan last month, some hilariously awful attempts to pick up women using memes and languages you’re more likely to find on Reddit than in real life, and a Bluegrass performance of the Super Mario. Cringeworthy? You bet.

On the other side of things though, we get a pretty amazing combo performance of Yo-Yo Ma and Lil’ Buck, and some impressive footage of the US Navy testing its newest maritime weapon: a laser capable of setting fire to small boats.

Opening Ceremony Blog – Spike Jonze Presents: Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma

The unlikely pair were together to do a performance at an event to sponsor arts education and to protest the cutting of arts funding in schools. Lil Buck, a dancer in LA, has been spotted on YouTube by someone who knows Yo-Yo Ma, and suggested the collaborative performance to the two of them, and the result is the really impressive mashup you see here.

Internet Trolls Pick Up Girls – Get Her Number!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why your long and storied Reddit comment history isn’t about to win you points in the real world. All of the memes, all of the lines and hooks that are hilarious when read in text, don’t seem to translate into real ways to interact with people, much less pick up ladies when approached. I can’t imagine why.

The Cleverlys perform Super Mario for Maxim UK

I know I lumped this into the “cringeworthy” category, but it’s actually really cool and a lot of fun to listen to, even if you’re no fan of the twang of banjos and the whole Bluegrass sound. The Cleverlys, a Bluegrass band with amazing taste in headgear, decided to do a song that Maxim UK’s readers would probably know: the Super Mario Theme.

南三陸町志津川高校から見た津波の様子

The title of the video translates roughly to “South Sanriku – Tsunami seen from Shizugawa High School” and it’s probably the most incredible footage of the event I’ve seen yet. We the viewer (and thankfully the person holding the camera) were safely up on high ground, but watching the waves and water come crashing through the town is enough to make anyone frightened, especially the people we see near the end of the video, who stay behind to watch the water approach and subsequently have to flee for their lives.

The new footage has made its way around a number of blogs and news sites, picking up over 2 million views along the way – it serves as a reminder that even though media attention may have turned from it, the Japanese people still have years of rebuilding in front of them, and the dead and missing are still in the tens of thousands. Help, if you can.

Maritime Laser Demonstration

The US Navy has never really been shy about taking video of their most impressive weapons systems and posting them to YouTube for the world to see. After all, it’s not like they’re posting schematics or anything – just a fairly amazing show of force. This video of a new solid-state laser system that’s designed to be mounted on a ship is no exception. With a few quick pulses of the laser, the boat, located a mile away from the ship, catches fire. The end goal of the tech is to be part of a missile defense system that can stop enemy missiles from reaching friendly shores.